A Manorville man has been charged in the 20-year-old murders of two women found beaten and strangled to death in the woods in Shirley and East Patchogue.
Suffolk County Police said they arrested John Bittrolff, 48, of Silas Carter Road in Manorville and charged him with two counts of murder in the second degree in the deaths of Rita Tangredi, 31, in 1993 and Colleen McNamee, 20, in 1994.
Tangredi’s nude body was found in a wooded area off off of Esplanade Drive in East Patchogue on Nov. 2, 1993. Tangredi’s address was not known at the time of her death, police said.
McNamee’s nude body was found in the woods near Express Drive South and William Floyd Parkway in Shirley on Jan.30, 1994, according to police. McNamee lived in Holbrook.
Detectives at the original crime scenes in 1993 and 1994 recovered DNA evidence that linked the two murders, according to a Suffolk Police press release. Suffolk homicide detectives this year recovered new DNA evidence that linked Bittrolff to the two cold cases, police said. No further information was provided regarding the new DNA evidence recoved by detectives that police say linked Bittrolff to the crimes.
Police did not say whether Bittrolff is a suspect in any other cold-case murders. At least six bodies or human remains have been discovered in the woods in the Manorville area over the past decade. Two of those victims have been linked to the Gilgo Beach case, in which police are investigating the deaths of at least 10 people whose bodies or body parts were found in dense brush along Ocean Parkway in Babylon. The Gilgo Beach murders were the work of a serial killer, according to police investigators.
Bittrolff, who was arrested yesterday, was held overnight at the Fifth Precinct pending his arraignment in First District Court this morning, police said.
Editor’s note: A criminal charge is an accusation. By law, a person charged with a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
